LITTLE BOXES: (IL)LOGIC(S) OF TRUTH-ROOM(S)

DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY
Indian Statistical Institute
Kolkata

Little Boxes
Malvina Reynolds
(sung by Pete Seeger 1962)
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same,
There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one

And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Words and music by Malvina Reynolds.
Copyright 1962, Schroder Music Company
Here I am reiterating Nietzsche truth-seeking is a disease will to know leads to will power.
Even then, we have truth rooms (TR) and we are celebrating our truth claims if it leads to
foundational original knowledge base. Though we are decorating our TRs with the pieces of
our celebrated fundamental knowledge, we do not think that it leads to fundamentalism. My TR
is true in the true sense of the term and My TR supplies fundamental knowledge and yet it is not
fundamentalism! We are following, either in our day-to-day life-spaces, or in our statist-space or
in our academic or aesthetic life-spaces, different TRs, knowingly or unknowingly, basics of any
fundamental TR or TRs acclaiming that only my watch is running rightly. When I am branding
one TR as fundamentalist TR, I do not consider my TR as fundamentalist TR, though it is
fundamental piece of work and I am also a fundamental truth-seeker. Am I seeing my civilized
mirror-image, when I am branding other as savage, terrorist, or fundamentalist?

Following Malvina Reynolds, I want to call all these TRs as little boxes. Within this little box or
TR of one vegetarian, all the animal proteins, onion and musur dal are prohibited and another
vegetarian thinks s/he can consume onion and musur dal along with egg and still preserves
vegetarian status according his/her world-views. In case of determining the semantic status of
the term vegetarian, are we ready to incorporate two TRs of two vegetarians, or the meaning
of the term is to be decided positively, formally and deterministically by terminating the second
vegetarian as vegetarian? Where are the entry-points of such TRs? Where lies the closure of
such TRs? Or, they all look just the same?

Anyway, the preservation of these different little boxes is a problem to me and in this paper, I
will try to understand it in reference to the foundational questions of scientific investigation. My
Little Box gives me comfort, security, ease and simultaneously provides me with suffocation,
insecurity, and discomfort. This very much claustrophobic dependence on a single TR makes
me remember of a giant, Damastes or otherwise Prokrustes, who laid all human beings on his
bed and then lop them or rack them out to make fit it. Are these Little Boxes Prokrustean Bed?

Let us scrutinize some TRs in this regard in reference to different academic disciplines the
disciplines categorized according to the norm of academic beaurocrasy or academic
administration.

Let us start with Classical Physics. M. Rouget argued (cited in Hollis, 1994: 55) that scientific
statements are often

as if true.

Hollis (ibid), following Rouget, elaborated it with the

accepted hypothesis that the acceleration of a body dropped in a vacuum is constant g (about
32 feet per second per second on earth), implying that the distance (s) traveled after t seconds
is given by the formula s=1/2 gt2. When the formula is applied to various objects dropped from
various heights in the earth atmosphere, it is found to hold, more or less, in usefully many but
not all cases.

It can therefore be stated: under a wide range of circumstances, bodies that fall in the
actual atmosphere behave as if they are falling in a vacuum. In the language so common
in Economics, this would be rapidly translated into: the formula assumes a vacuum. Yet it
clearly does no such thing. the formula is accepted because it works, not because we
live in approximate vacuumwhatever that means. (1953, p.18)
Let us try to understand this abstraction with a popular example. Once Sunil Gavaskar
commented on a particular deployment of a softwareHawk eye. This special software was
deployed in the Mini World Cup (2002) to predict Leg Before Wicket-decision as it shows the
possible trajectory of the cricket ball (whether it hits the wicket or not). Gavaskar pointed out that
the software did not count the variables like the character of soil (the pitch), the direction and
speed of the wind, the height of the bowlers hand and his/her grip (grip is seldom overt) etc.
Though Hawk eye is ideal software, it is not suitable for the practical decision on LBW as it
does not take into account such variables. Though, in Science, we generally idealize a formula
by considering other variables as non-existent entities (say, for example, the swinging of
different pendulums in different regions of the earth.).

In Cricket , we can say, without any hesitation that Shane Warne is continuing his 6.5 over.
What is the status of .5 in six-balls over? Even at the moment of calculating cricketers career
averages, this .5 preserves its status according the Cricket communitys convention.

If Wittgenstein is to be believed, mathematics is a practice, performance-- mathematics is

something we do, and we could just as well do it any other way, mathematicians TR is also a
Little Box. One could write 12+1=14 as in my apartment there is no thirteenth floor as according

to that truth-room, the number 13 is unlucky. Therefore, mathematics is a performance of the

community(cf. the counting of decimal system, multiple of 20 system and binary system). For
Wittgenstein communalism of mathematics is determined by the communities convenience and
necessity.
In case of Economics, I can write 3 goats= 1 cow or 1 apartment= Rs. 12 lacs by adding
some sufficient causes. How do I put the sign = in between two unequal signifiers? The
question is irrelevant enough within the TR of Economics. Questioning the equalizing effect of a
dangerous supplement, a properly signed signifier called money, is prohibited within the ambit
of economic activitys TR. I am not questioning anything, rather I am representing

the

presentations of a priori s, though it is neither analytical a priori, nor the synthetic one, but
something called historical a priorian a priori determined, conditioned, appropriated,
approximated by the historical incidences and those a prioris get epistemic status within the
ambit of a certain TR.

Let us switch over, for the time being, from academic administration to some problems of
ordinary language, which, as alleged by the Logical Positivists, is illogical. Ok, let us try to
rewrite these problems of Bangla language in the form of sentential Calculus.
The problem, we have to face, may be termed as one is not equal to one problem, which is
according to existing mathematical system impossible. A rule of one deletion was proposed by
Dasgupta (1987). For example, in the Determiner Phrases like

1.

dokanduTo
shop-two-classifier

2.

dokanTa
shop-singular-classifier

Obviously, "one is deleted in 2. However, Dasgupta mentioned that one deletion is not true in
the cases like

3.

jOlTa
Water-classifier

4.

telTa

oil-classifier
As according to the physical measurement, and in Bangla one cannot say

5.

*EkTa jOl
One-classifier water

There are some pragmatic cases where such expression like 5 is possible. That possibility may
be ignored for the time being and instead, one may still maintain the rule of the one deletion as
the perception from the part of the speaker may still be one" in those cases. It is one as a unit,
which is perceived here by the speaker. Of course, this is not a deterministic physical one, but
one as a whole unit. When any Bangla speaker says,
6.

phrij theke

jOlTa

fridge from water-classifier

ano.
bring

"Bring water from the fridge."

his/her intention obviously refers to one bottle of water. Therefore, one is there, but it is a
fuzzy one.

The concept of this fuzzy "one" can be further illustrated in the following examples, where
deterministic numeral expressions are changed to non-deterministic Determiner Phrases:

7.a) paMcTa
five-classifier (definite)
7.b) goTa paMcek
classifier( indef. ) five-one
"more or less five "
8.a)

paMcjon
five-classifier (definite)

8.b)

jona paMcek
classifier( indef. ) five-one
"more or less five "

9.a)
9.b)

paMckhana
five-classifier
khan paMcek
classifier( indef. ) five-one
"more or less five "

10.a) paMc
Hajar
"five thousand"
10.b) Hajar
paMcek
thousand
five-one
"more or less five thousand"
11.a) paMc lakh
five lacs
11.b) lakh paMcek
lacs five-one
"more or less five lacs"
Examples like 7-11 show those deterministic expressions in (a) and non-deterministic
expressions in (b). Compared to (a), examples in (b) show the fronting of classifiers with
subsequent phonemic change and an addition of /ek/ one to the specific numeral x. This one is
not deterministic +-1, but this one has a range more or less than +- 1.

All these represent a psychological non-deterministic range of numbers in the cognition of

Bangla speakers. The Bangla numeral expressions show the world-views of the community
concerned with a special reference to their psychophysical way of looking at things (perception)
and ways of making order of things (understanding). Therefore, it is a hermeneutic problem that
involves the relative gap between human perception and understanding in relation to their
habitat. The range of +-1 is different in different persons belonging to different socio-economic
classes or even it may be different in a single person in different psycho-social context.

From the non-deterministic TR of ordinary language, I am returning to the problem of my

disciplineLinguistics. In case of Linguistics, Chomsky is proposing a creative speaking subject
with zero history. Within the TR of ideal speaking subject , this equality of language is a
necessary one. It is true, but it is unreal as at the moment of constructing the metanarrative of
ideal speaking subject, this TR does not consider the correlation between empty linguistic
organism and human malleability and the childhood configuration, neurotic elements and
individual biography.

In this situation, I am not labeling any of these TRs as fallacious and I am not negating or
refuting any of these TRs. All these TRs provide us enough comfort and ease to live our life
happily. If I wish to destroy any of these TRs, it would be considered as a violence. The

question is what to do now? If all these TRs are ephemeral and contingent enough, how do we
ensure our insurance within TR?

Let me put it in this way: if I do not like one TR, let me take it as a legitimate possibility without
any commitment and on the other hand, if I feel comfort in one of these TRs, let me commit
myself to that particular TR. Or, another possibility is to swing from one TR to another TR. This
type of attitude leads to the politics of tolerance. I am not projecting other as fundamentalist,
terrorist or savage by keeping aside my own fundamentalism. Moreover, I do not want to hide
violent market fundamentalism by foregrounding the violence of religious fundamentalism. Both
of these two are violent and the agenda of proposing such (ill)ogics of TR is to reiterate the logic
of ahimsa, non-violence, as proposed by the Jaina Theorists. And this is Anekanta of the Jaina
Philosophers. What I am paraphrasing here is nothing but the re-reading of Jaina Philosophy by
Krishnachandra Bhathacharya and Kalidas Bhattacharya. For it was a response from the
colonized domain against the monolithic enlightenment project of the Sahibs. This imagination
of plurality, or one may call, following Krishnachandra, the concept of alternity, as a response to
the singularity of different regional sciences inaugurates another problem. Chatterji said,
If nationalism in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined
community from certain modular forms already made available to them by
Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?. (1993:5,
emphasis added)
I want to extend this question and wish to switch over from the nation statist space to the
epistemological space. Did we have no imagination at the level of epistemology?

In fact,

Chatterjees question (what do they have left to imagine?.)inaugurates the question of

rem(a)inder (in Lacanian sense of the term) in the context of colonial subjectivity, which is,
though destroyed by the imagined symbolic order, constructs its real(-ity) as rem(a)inder
through a negation of Nationalism (Gandhi, Rabindranath) and by introducing anekanta (theory
of many perspectives) alternity ( Krishnachandra Bhattacharya and Kalidas Bhattacharya in
Philosophy); Abu Sayed Ayub, Buddhadeb Basu and Sudhindranath Dutta in Bangla literary
criticism and translation theory; P.C. Mahalanabis and J.B.S. Haldane in Statistics and natural
sciences. All of them deployed anekanta-theory in their respective fields).

Let me introduce a little bit of different History of ankantavada in the Indian colonial context. If
any one looks into the logo of our institute, s/he will find a statement written in the Devanagarifont in the bottom of a banyan tree1: bhinnesu (in different others loci, note the plural number

in Locative in the Sanskrit word bhinnesu) aykyasya (unitys, the counterpositive, pratiyogin)
darsanam (perception, darsana, in the Indian context, means Philosophy). The great banyan
tree in the logo also reflects the nature of such proposition. This proposition bears the impact of
Jaina Anekantavada, in which Mahalanabis was himself interested as he found a link between
Probability Statistics and Jaina Anekantavada and published a paper on the same in as early as
1954. J.B.S. Haldane (1957), following Mahalanabis, also noticed in the syadvada (a part of
anekantavada) in reference to the then physiology, the position of conclusion intermediate to
certainty and uncertainty. Haldane mentioned one crucial thing in connection with syadvada that
is known as halting problem of Turing Machine. Haldane mentioned paradoxes of Principia
Mathematica, when are given in a machine, the answer from the part of machine would be
indeterminate.

The question is then, how do I myself engage myself in this domain of alternity? Chomsky:
Context free ideal creative speaking subject with zero History
Sed contra: Context-sensitive creative speaking corporeal with History
(The term creative[in the Chomskyan sense of the term]is kept under erasure because creativity
is a presence as well as an absence)
My response to such answer is simply bhedabhedaa much discussed phenomenon in the
Indian Philosophyit is at a time identity (abheda) and difference(bheda)positive equality as
well as negative equality. Creative speaking subject is thereout therebut with
constraints,It is at a time syadasti and syat nasti and avyakvyam. What is about contemporary
Physics? Am I not

taking cue from natural science(Chomsky,1980:2) or Anarchist Socio-

Biology a la Kropotkin? Alternatively, am I confining myself in the Little box of my own TR? Or,
why am I anxious enough to include my proposition in the Little Boxes of such disciplines as
well as methods?
ENDNOTE
1. It is a replica of the great banyan tree of the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden,
Shibpur. The relevant information regarding this tree is as follows:

The Great Banyan Tree

Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden, Shibpur, West Bengal

FICUS BENGHALENSIS-L (FAMILY: MORACEAE)

Age more than 240 years.
Highest Branch 24.5 m

Canopy 420 m
Prop roots 2880

Main trunk Removed in 1925

Origin India

The Great Banyan Tree is one of the greatest attractions and landmark of Indian Botanic Garden, the tree,
FICUS BENGHALENSIS-L (FAMILY: MORACEAE). In more than 250 years old and spread over an
area of about 1.5 Hectares with about 2880 prop roots. A wonder in plant Kingdom, the tree occupies its
position in the Guinness Book of World Records.
This banyan tree perfectly reflects, metaphorically speaking, the ethos of anekantavada.
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